CORNWALL, Ontario – Two non-profit owners of senior care homes have gone to the City to receive funding for repairs.
Beek Lindsay Seniors Residence Inc. has requested $140,000 for a roof replacement project and the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph Housing Corporation, which manages Marie de la Ferre Apartments are asking for $81,160 to modernize the buildings elevators, landscaping, fire panel replacement and canopy replacement. The total cost of the projects is $240,000 and $325,534 respectively.
The service providers are asking for the money from the Social Housing Reserve Fund, which is supported by the seniors home service providers, who contribute 50 per cent of their annual budget surpluses to the fund. As of writing the fund sits at just shy of $2.06 million.
The fund is managed by the City of Cornwall and has been since the responsibility for care homes was downloaded on municipalities nearly 20 years ago.
This is the first time in seven years that a senior care home service provider has asked for funding from this reserve, Stacey Ferguson, Administrator of Social and Housing Services, explained that in recent years, seniors care home service providers had been able to draw on a variety of programs to fund renovation and building projects, but that those have been cancelled recently.
Both of the service providers that were applying for money from the Social Housing Reserve Fund had previously been counting on money from the provincial GreenON program, which was cancelled by the Doug Ford government in June, weeks after they came into office.
“Most social housing stock was built in the 70s. So they’re getting up there,” said Ferguson when asked if more such demands on the reserve fund could be expected. “I do expect there will be more requests going forward.”
Council approved the requests from the two senior care home service providers.
As it stands now, the Social Housing Reserve Fund stands at around $2 million.
